patent suit

Samsung's $400m damages pay-out to Apple for copying the iPhone design has been overturned, with the US Supreme Court sending the ruling back for reassessment. The court agreed to hear Samsung's complaint earlier this year, with Samsung arguing that Apple's argument that various models of the South Korean firm's phones and tablets infringed patented features like a rectangular devices with rounded corners had led to a miscalculation in what damages should be owed. Now, the Federal Circuit will again rule on whether that $400m figure is the most appropriate.

Apple almost needed to pay VirnetX, a patent holding company, $625.6 million, a lot more than what it is demanding from Samsung over patent infringement. It seems, however, that the stars are aligning in Apple's favor. At least for now. Tyler, Texas District Judge Robert Schroeder overturned an earlier verdict awarding VirnetX that lump sum on the grounds of an unfair trial. However, Apple isn't exactly in the clear yet, as the judge did order two separate retrials, where Apple could still come out with a hefty fine.

Over the weekend, Apple was almost dealt a fatal blow in China. The Beijing Intellectual Patent Office ruled that Apple's iPhone 6 infringed on patents held by a certain company named Shenzhen Baili, which would have meant sales of the smartphone would need to be suspended. Apple gained a slight reprieve while the ruling gets reviewed. Now it would seem that the company that sued it, as well as its parent company Digione, might not exactly be what they say, with Shenzhen Baili barely existing as a "flesh and blood" company.

Software and tech companies might have just scored a victory in their almost never ending battle against patent trolls and their often frivolous patent claims. The US Supreme Court has just handed down a ruling that upheld a new government process that allowed challenges to the validity of patents to be held before the Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) instead of a federal court, significantly cutting down on trial costs. The process has been largely hailed by companies like Google and Apple in aiding them in fending off patent trolls.

Samsung is definitely no stranger to patent lawsuits. It has been sued left and right by different parties, ranging from your usual patent trolls to Apple, in its most high-profile patent court battle. Now, however, Samsung is facing an attack from an unexpected new foe. Chinese OEM Huawei has filed a lawsuit against Samsung in the US, alleging that the Korean consumer electronics giant has used several of its patents, mostly relating to the use of 4G technology and software, in its smartphones without paying a license fee.

Patent trolls are nothing new. They may have even existed as long as it became profitable to sue people for patent infringement. Of late, however, they have increased in their aggressiveness and boldness, whether out of desperation or out of greed. Case in point this latest patent lawsuit levied upon Apple by a Texas company named Corydoras Technologies, LLC. Its beef is that all of Apple's iPhones, and some of its iPads, can make calls, take selfies, do video chats, and block incoming calls. Practically what makes a smartphone a smartphone.

In a court case that seems to have been going on since the dawn of time, Apple and Samsung remain at legal war with one another. As a result of that case - the same one we've been talking about for several years - Apple has won an injunction to block the sales of several Samsung phones. Lucky for Samsung, the lot of these phones are... essentially out of rotation. There's almost no possible way you'd be buying these phones in a store today anyway, and if you were, it probably wouldn't be direct from Samsung.

The patent system was designed in order to encourage and foster innovation. Of late, however, it has had the opposite effect. Design patents, in particular, have become the focus of much debate in light of the tug of war between Samsung and Apple in the past years. Microsoft is, of course, a long time player in this game but it has recently come under the spotlight when it sued Corel last week for infringing on a few design patents, including a graphical slider user interface.

As smartwatches become more known and more ubiquitous, only time will tell before they become the patent litigation magnet that smartphones are today. Actually, that ball has already started rolling, but for a specific use case. A non-practicing entity or NPE, lovingly called patent trolls, by the name of Intellectual Capital Consulting is suing people left and right over a patent related to how a watch can be used to lock, unlock, and start a car remotely. The lawsuit's defendants are the likes of Apple, Samsung, and probably half the car makers in the world.

NVIDIA's hopes to tie up Samsung and Qualcomm in an expensive sales ban over mobile graphics chips has hit a roadblock. The company had sought an injunction from the United States International Trade Commission, alleging that rival chipmakers were infringing on its graphics patents with silicon found inside - among others - the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 and Galaxy S5.

It would have been a devastating blow if Microsoft was blocked from importing its next batch of Lumia smartphones even before its Windows 10 Mobile OS got out the door. That crisis, however, has been just averted when the US International Trade Commission (ITC) ruled in favor of Redmond in a patent case that InterDigital brought against Nokia way back in 2007. According to the ITC, Microsoft did not infringe on InterDigital's patents, which saves it from a potential import ban that could affect its Lumia smartphones.

If you thought the patent squabble between frenemies Apple and Samsung was over, better wake up and smell the coffee. Or in this case, read the US Patent and Trademark Office's latest finding. According to the Central Reexamination Division of the USPTO, Apple Design Patent number 618,677 is invalid on grounds of "obviousness" and prior art. This D'677 was one of the more important patents used by Cupertino to sue Samsung for infringement, a case that would have awarded it half a billion dollars if not for this recent ruling.